11th Annual Cat’s Meow Wraps Up!

Congratulations to the 15 incredible public speakers who ‘left it all on the stage’ at The Cat’s Meow Recitation Finale!

Thanks to all who came out to support and to all who helped run the show–especially Rainy and Johanna who were superb MCs and our guest judges, Duncan Shields, Victoria Wills (’10), and Anna Galvin (see bios below).

Soha will receive the chance to try-out for the National Poetry in Voice final in Montreal, QC in April!

Congratulations to ALL of you who tried your best this year!

Tanya Boteju
Public Speaking Coach

Watch the winning recitations:

Judge Biographies:

Duncan Shields
Duncan is a spoken word artist from Vancouver, British Columbia. He is a two-time Vancouver Haiku Champion, a two-time Vancouver Nerd Slam Champion, and the winner of the 2010 IWPS Haiku Championship in Charlotte North Carolina. He is one of only two North American poets to slam 100 poems in a row with no repeats and is on his way to doing 200. He was a competitor in the final CBC Radio poetry faceoff in 2009. He is the current Vancouver poetry Slam Master, and he maintains the Vancouver Poetry Slam YouTube channel. Recently he made the 2013 and 2014 Vancouver Poetry Slam Teams. He enjoys the rain, movies, science fiction, and likes bland burritos. He’s happy to be here.

Victoria Wills (’10)
Victoria survived recitations and graduated from York House in 2010. She recently earned her B.A. in Comparative Literature and Society at Columbia University, with a focus on 20th century French and American literature and literary translation. At Columbia, she was a staff editor for Quarto (Columbia’s Undergraduate Literary Journal) and a founding member of Quarto’s rogue little sister, 4×4. Her writing has been published by Blue & White Magazine, the David Suzuki Foundation and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’s education journal, Our Schools/Our Selves.

Anna Galvin
Anna is delighted to assist adjudicating the finals of York House’s annual recitation competition. Raised in Australia, Anna Galvin is an actor who trained in Oxford, UK, and now calls Vancouver home. Her daughter Bianca attends YHS in Grade 5. Anna s local theatre credits include Dangerous Corner for the Vancouver Playhouse, The Philanderer, Calendar Girls, and Other Desert Cities for the Arts Club. Her recent film and television credits include; Warcraft, Once Upon a Time, Supernatural, Motive, Almost Human, Backstrom, Mr Young and Transparency. Anna will be performing in the Artsclub’s upcoming production of Vanya, Sonia, Masha and Spike in March, and Bard on the Beach this summer.